1977 ls ly6 6.0 turbo t56 magnum 6 speed build

[Mileswinger]

crypto has finally made it to the point where i am able to build my dream car i started about 5 months ago and have learned a ton. considering i knew almost nothing and the only real upgrade i had done before this was a speaker system. i also have learned everything on youtube as no one i know works on cars to this degree, so any critics or suggestions is welcome. The car is a 1977 trans am it originally had the 400 but somewhere before i got ahold of it someone stuck a 403 in it. The 403 was great but the 8 mpg was rough especially with me being in high school driving a lot. The 403 was also very slow. I started looking around and decided a 6.0 was a good start and i Read they can be found in the junkyards so I went to the junkyard and pulled a 6.0 lq4 out of a Silverado for 400$ and brought it home. My parents were pretty upset as i now had a car with no engine and a huge motor in there garage, they got over it when they saw the skill i am learning. I then tore it all down to the bare bones and noticed a cam bearing was spun so i kept the crank and made the ruined block into a table. then i hopped on eBay and picked up a gen 4 ly6 block for 1300. The next step was transmission as I wanted a Manuel so i sold the 4l80e and bought a t56 magnum for 3000$ After that I decided i wanted a new rotating assembly so if I  ordered ls bullet pistons 4.005 as well as k1 rods and some performance rings and bearings for the crank and pistons all for 1800$. I then took my crank, pistons and rods and block to the machine shop and had the cylinder bored 4.005 and the rotating assembly balanced all for 500$ I then relized my lack of research and should have bought a new crank too because of the 24x reluctor wheel but everything was already balanced so i decided against it and would just go with a 1x cam gear and a gen 4 front cover 100$ with a extension and found a holley hp on facebook for 1000$ and got a wiring harness for 500$ off of holley For the oil pan i went with the ebay holley imitation one and for the valve covers i am using the original ones from the lq4. For the heads i am using brand new 317 heads with tick performance 660 lift dual valve springs 240$ as well as a trunnion upgrade130$ for the rockers and arp head bolts 160$ and ls9 gaskets 100$ with hardned pushrods 100$. For the cam shaft i went with tick performance stage 2 turbo cam 389$. as for putting it in the actual car i went with holleys motor mounts and transmission mounts those were a few hundred bucks and for the clutch i went with summit racings twin disc it was 1000$ I am still pretty far off from done i still need to figure out fuel pumps and the actual turbo parts but hopefully in the next two weeks i can at least have a running engine and wont have to order parts. I have been taking pictures this whole time and will hopefully get the chance to upload them fairly soon.

[silver78]

Sounds like a good start.  Lots of free help on this site don't hesitate to ask questions. Looking forward to pics.

[ryeguy2006a]

Great project, and good decision to go with Holley EFI. One suggestion that I would make to you would be to try and replace the HP ECU for a Terminator X Max so that you can integrate the VSS into the ECU. A lot of my settings have conditions based on VSS such as the reverse lockout, fan cutoff and etc. There's not a easy way to integrate the VSS with HP ECU.

Otherwise it sounds like a great project. Looking back on all of my projects, one of the things I regret is not driving the car more. Before adding the turbo to the car, my suggestion would be to get the engine up and running with your current setup using cheap shorty headers or stock manifolds and get all the bugs worked out first. There are so many different obstacles and things to consider when doing an LS swap, and adding a turbo on top of that will complicate and prolong the build. Just my 2 cents. Looking forward to seeing the pictures of the build.

Ryan

[ryeguy2006a]

Also, if you don't have an intake yet, you should look up 821 or 823 square port heads for your LY6. They are a much better flowing head than the cathedral ports, and will translate into you running less boost and make more power when you add the turbo. Or you could do what I did and add an LSA supercharger to the mix.